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Tavares was on for one more EVGA than Marner. JT was -3 and Marner was -1; Marner wants $13.5m and JT is in the realm of $5m.
Again, you should know better the level of competition Marner was tasked with. Florida’s top line was mostly kept in check with Marner and Matthews on the ice against them. Had that been Tavares, he would have probably been -10. Marner also scored 13 playoff points to Tavares’ 7. Marner had a GWG and a primary assist on a GWG against Florida. He’s 28. Tavares is 34 going on 35. That difference in money being spent is warranted because Marner is entering his prime while Tavares is entering his wheelchair years which means whatever money you “save” is spent on making sure he’s less of a liability. Was Tavares 7th in Selke voting? No, he wasn’t. He never has been. He never will be. Does Tavares kill penalties? No, he doesn’t. This idea of savings is basically admitting you want inferior players on the team as long as it saves you money to pay for more inferior players.
Here’s the thing – there’s not a single Leaf fan that wasn’t secretly hoping that Mitch Marner would finally – FINALLY – show up in the playoffs and be THE guy. Take charge. Own the ice. Own some shifts single-handedly – because at the amount he wants to paid, he should. And yeah, just ‘cos you might be thinking it – we have seen Matthews do it in the playoffs – like last year against Boston, before McAvoy pitch-forked his head into the ice giving him a concussion. But we didn’t and still haven’t seen Marner strap the team to his back when they need it.
He won games. He had more playoff points than Matthews. Led the team in scoring even without a 100% Matthews. Marner did show up and did his part. He’s not McDavid, no but he’s not the problem here as it’s been proven time and time again. And losing him for nothing won’t make things better either. Clearly, this will not be addition by subtraction. This is a straight subtraction of talent.
We haven’t seen that from any of them at crucial times. Matthews get a pass this year due to injury. Tavares gets a pass due to age and his new contract demands. I don’t expect my $5m guy to do that. Nylander doesn’t get a pass. He vanished and sucked – and was the passenger – at the end of the Florida series. At this point I’m resigned to the facts that Marner wants to leave, Nylander doesn’t – so all the pretend fabrications of moving one guy and keeping the other – just so you can VASTLY overpay someone is just plain mismanagement.
What’s Matthews’ excuse all the other years he didn’t show up? He was busy shitting his pants last year too, right? I wonder what excuse he will have next playoffs without an elite passer feeding him the puck all year and on the PP.
Rielly gets a pass too? How many passes does he get? Or does he give them away like he does on the ice?
You are correct, Nylander disappeared from Game 4-7. If Marner walks it’s because they pushed him out the door while making excuses for everybody else. Why? Because they need him to take a discount while they overpay everybody else? Because they need cap space to sign more defensively dog shit passengers?
Will we miss Marner? At times, yes. But not likely in the playoffs.
Factually incorrect. Which is rare for you. He directly helped win 2 of the 3 games they won against Florida. More career playoff points than Matthews, Nylander and Tavares. When Florida puts the band back together, the Leafs will not have Marner, Bennett, Marchand or anybody else that will make that kind of positive difference. Florida will mop the floor with them again as losing your best players for nothing has consequences of losing in the playoffs. And Marner will win, just like Kadri, somewhere else.
Oh so Berube saying he wants JT back 100% is really untrue but we are supposed to believe he loves every single part of Marner’s game top to bottom and when he said 100% THAT TIME he meant it but not the other time? lol Really?
Berube wants JT the person back. If he wants the player back, he’s an idiot. The stats don’t lie. Tavares was one of the biggest reasons they lost to Florida. Clear as day. He didn’t score in 6 out of 7 games and he was on the ice for the most EVGA. That is a garbage loser player at 34 years old who will not be getting better as he marches toward 40.
If you are saying JT shouldn’t be back because he’s ‘a loser’ you have to acknowledge the same lack of success Marner has had at the NHL playoff level don’t you?
Wrong again. JT has been through his prime. And yet Marner still has more career playoff points despite being 6/7 years younger. Marner hasn’t gone through his prime yet. Marner has the opportunity to show he’s better than what he has been. JT will only get worse from here.
JT is slow, Marner is soft, JT was shitty offensively vs Florida, Marner was a VERY far cry from the 100 point player he was all season.
Marner isn’t horrid in the defensive zone and clearly outscored Tavares. Still a PPG player even if it wasn’t his 100 point pace. Tavares became a 50 point pace and a minus player. With the easier match-up.
Marner had 1 goal in the entire series, went pointless in games 5 and 7 and was a -2 in both games and got a gravy assist on a shovel pass in game 6. If you want to talk about JT not performing in Florida that’s fine and true but let’s also acknowledge that Marner was not good either. Marner had 1 point in the last 4 games of the series, a series in which THEY BOTH sucked offensively.
Marner had a GAME WINNING GOAL. I’ll take the GWG over the 2 goals in a losing effort. Again, Tavares had 0 points in 6 out of 7 games. He sucked the bag the entire series except one game. That “1 point” was a primary assist on a GWG. So, again, Marner helped win TWO of the THREE games they beat Florida. How many did Tavares help win? NONE. Wake the fuck up to reality.
You undervalue JT to a drastic degree for whatever reason – you can hate him that’s fine but pretending he only brings the value that a Corey Perry does to a team is just so far from the truth. JT on the open market would get 4 to 4 M from many teams – he’s not a 1M player.
Undervalue? Tavares is a career loser. He’s never won a fucking thing in his NHL career. Not one award. Not one trophy. Not one Cup. Nothing. And he is past his prime. Considering him like Perry is still overvaluing what he brings because at least Perry was a winner. Tavares “came home” to be the 2nd highest paid player in the NHL and did what? Dick on a stick.
Tavares is only useful as a 1 million dollar player because his defense is so bad you need to spend another 5 million to help him break even. If some idiot team wants to give him more money, go ahead. Take him. Enjoy losing in the playoffs as Tavares has done his entire fucking career.
If you want to talk about saving money to create a more balanced roster the move is obvious and likely the one that will happen, (much to your obvious displeasure) and Marner will walk and the Leafs will have 13M or more of cap space to use on creating that balance. The concept that they have to spend money to support JT or what you claim are his weaknesses is fine, Mitch Marner alone can’t bring success to this team so they would or will have to spend money to make that happen to overcome the things missing in his game (size, toughness to start) as well as a sniper to finish his passes. If you want to go down that path then you can say some of what the Leafs pay Matthews is for that exact reason.
13 million in cap space and you still can’t name who is actually going to come to Toronto to be better than keeping Marner. Going to spend it on another garbage UFA like Tavares? Bennett and Marchand are staying right where they are (for good reason) and the Leafs will be left with scraps that will fair no better.
Finally as far as ‘when’ Tre and Berube look at the tapes to try and figure out why they lost – you seriously don’t think they have done that already and Berube is saying he 100% wants JT back and will suddenly change his mind when he finally does so? You can’t possibly be serious on this.
If this team brings back Tavares and Rielly and let’s Marner walk for nothing, enjoy the playoff failures while Marner wins a Cup like Kadri did. They’ll be well earned.
The 2026 UFA crop is much bigger than 97
Makar – No chance. Staying in Colorado on a mega deal. That’s why they got rid of Rantanen. They knew they needed the space to keep Makar. He’s from Calgary so, they might have a 5% chance.
Eichel – No chance. No reason to come to the Leafs. Staying in Vegas. More likely to go “home” to Boston than the Leafs.
Kaprizov – No chance. Minnesota is dead in the water without him. We already have one Nylander anyway.
Connor – No chance. Winnipeg is screwed without Connor. More likely to go “home” to Detroit than the Leafs.
Bobrovsky – No chance. Florida until he retires. Why would he ever consider leaving at 38+?
Panarin – No chance. 34+, why would you want him with his best years behind him?
Jenner – 50/50 chance. Better off getting him in a trade than letting him hit the market where he could get offered more like ROR in Nashville.
Lowry – No chance. Winnipeg captain, they’ll resign him.
OV – No chance. He’s 40, Capital for life. He has said he would like to play like a crazy market like Toronto or Montreal but at 40+, how much is he going to have left in the tank?
Trouba – No chance. More likely to go to go “home” to Detroit than the Leafs.
Carlson – No chance. 35+. Why would he leave Washington at this point? More likely to go “home” to Boston than the Leafs.
Laine – LOL
Kopitar – No chance, going to retire a King.
Kempe – No chance, Kings keep him 100%.
Demko – Leafs already have Woll, doubt he wants to be a back-up.
Stolarz – 50/50 chance he stays, depends if he becomes the “starter” or if he keeps getting injured.The rest of these guys aren’t needle movers. Bunch of depth guys…none of them make the Leafs an overnight contender.
Tuch
Oleksiak
Rasmoose
Marchment
Ferraro
Mikkola
SissonsAny many more……
The Leafs put themselves in this mess with UFA mistakes (Tavares). They won’t cure their disease with another dose of the disease.
Tkachuk has barely scored — and didn’t against us — and the team had no problem potting goals against our team, because we lost all the matchups or at best, came out evens, so our entire offense was nullified when the top 2 lines were shutdown.
Like it’s not as if this is a recent thing either: it’s been 8 years of this man. Way overdue for a change in the makeup of this team and it starts with saying goodbye to Marner. There is absolutely no way you can build a balanced team with that much allocated to so few players. So easy to shutdown and let your depth feast on our perennially weak bottom 6 that will always be at a disadvantage thanks to no money to spend on it.
Wrong.
Tkachuk was instrumental in the Panthers “turning” their team around. That’s who they got for Huberdeau. That’s a factual error people are making by believing they can lose a 100 point player just because Florida did. The Leafs won’t be getting a Tkachuk if Marner walks. Tkachuk has 24, 22 and now 16 playoff points (with the Final still to be played) in the past 3 Final runs in exchange for Huberdeau. What player are the Leafs getting that can do that if Marner walks…? It’s a dream.
The Leafs 1st line was evenly matched against the Barkov line. The Leafs 2nd line got obliterated defensively. The Leafs 3rd and 4th line scored 0 goals and couldn’t be effective shutdown lines at all. The Panthers 3rd line feasted. Losing Marner loses you the top line match-up and if Tavares comes back you lose the 2nd line match-up again. You won’t beat Florida if your top-six get caved in and your 3rd and 4th lines are slightly better because Florida’s 3rd line still kills whatever make shift bullshit UFA signings you can muster when Bennett and Marchand stay in Florida.
Say goodbye to Rielly, who has been here the longest, and say goodbye to the stripped captain Tavares. That’s as big a DNA change as anything else. And they won’t be losing a Selke nominated 100 point player in his prime for NOTHING while they do it either.
I guess some may say it’s “not bad” for year one at 1.6M (but to me, consdering how tight the Leafs are to the cap, it’s bad).
Not sure how 3.6 per against the cap for 4 years and then 2.13M per year for another 6 years can’t be described as anything other than bad, especially when you consider how tight to the cap the Leafs have been and probably always will be.
To me a Rielly buy out is an option that should even be considered.
Bad is allowing him back on this team to cost the Leafs games.
Plan A is not a buy-out but they definitely save money by dumping him. And as the cap goes up in the future decade, that cap hit will mean less and less and less.
IF TRUE
then this just proves my point that what Berube is saying in the media has to be taken with a grain of salt – he’s doing his job and following marching orders when he makes statements about UFA’s. And again he also said 100% he wanted to re-sign both Marner and JT.Tavares is a great human being. He’s a really nice guy. Dedicated. Good pro. But his teams lose playoff games because he’s not good enough where it matters.
When Berube says he wants Tavares back, he wants the person back. But the player, the stats have proven, is a loser. He’s too slow, he’s too shit defensively and offensively, vs Florida, he did nothing in 6 out of 7 games, including the PP which sucked.
“Saving” money with Tavares won’t make a damn difference when you have to spend the money you “saved” to make up for his obvious deficiencies. If they’re smart, they won’t take back Tavares unless he’s on a Corey Perry contract. Anything more than that is a self inflicted gunshot wound to the Leafs playoff success hopes.
When Tre and Berube sit down and look at the tape, when they investigate the reasons they lost the games they lost to the Panthers, they will see that Tavares was a problem and that Marner was the reason why they actually won games. And if they don’t, the team will fail. It’s that simple.
https://puckpedia.com/player/morgan-rielly/buyout?s=2025-2026
Buy-out for Morgan Rielly isn’t all that bad.
Leafs save 5.8 AAV this year and roughly 3.8 AAV for the rest of his contract. They won’t be taking a big “penalty” until 2030-2035 of 2.1 AAV per year.
Still better off trying to trade him to Vancouver or Seattle. But a buy-out is possible too as a plan B.
I think as long as we come out with a balanced top 9, even if the top line takes a step back, we’ll be in better shape, and the only way to do that is to add this off-season and let Marner walk.
I’m sure Matthews is going to absolutely love trying to score in the playoffs with even less help.
I also see people saying that they shouldn’t spend so they can be there if McDavid is available. To me that’s a pipe dream and it’s not one you sacrifice a hockey season to entertain. They either believe in the approach they are taking with the people they have (or acquire) or they need to make more changes because the Leafs aren’t in a rebuild or retool phase. If anything they’re changing tack and hopefully finding the personally who can direct the ship that way properly.
The odds of signing McDavid are about the same as signing Bennett and Marchand.
Is JT a “Craig Berube” type of player?
I mean you keep saying JT is horrific defensively and dog shit but lone behold guess what the coach said about re-signing JT……
No, he isn’t. And the difference is the stats prove that Tavares is horrible defensively whereas the stats prove Marner is not.
Agree here, I think there are some parallels with Florida. Mike Kelly explains it here
https://x.com/MikeKellyNHL/status/1929905485651612050
Panthers brought in Maurice and moved on from Huberdeau, scored 115 points..but so what
changed the makeup and playing style. no more running it backNow they are going all in with Berube, so they have to get players to fit his style. soft Mitch hasnt worked. and paying 14 mil wont fix it
So the NHL made a new UFA rule where if a player leaves as a UFA, the team that lost him automatically gets Matthew Tkachuk?
Because as cute as that comparison is, Huberdeau didn’t leave the team for NOTHING.
Also, Marner fits perfectly into Berube’s system as Berube has already said he wants Marner back 100%. So this false narrative that Marner doesn’t fit under Berube is a pile of horseshit.
The Leafs were 29th at 5v5 expected goals last year; that’s lottery team level right there.
They won the division because they had excellent goaltending and a much better defensive group.
Matthews doesn’t need Marner to exceed at this point in his career. I would say Marner needs Matthews far more than the other way around.
Marner plays slow, was incapable of getting in on the forecheck, so any winger capable of doing that is going to suit Berube’s systems.
With Marner gone, they can build out a balanced team, it’s really that simple. -gravy
So expected goals sucked therefore let a 100 point player walk for nothing and then win the Cup with the 32nd expected goals for? Excellent plan.
If the goaltending and D take a step back, the Leafs are absolutely, royally fucked, even with Marner and without him, they miss the playoffs entirely.
Berube himself stated he wants Marner back so obviously he already fits in his system.
With Marner gone, there are no players available who actually want to play in Toronto without being grossly overpaid.
Everybody here seems to want “balance” but can’t name players or what they will cost that will actually sign here and be an improvement. It’s a self-serving BeLeaf bullshit story.
Also some time has passed and I’m learning to heal and move forward
Run it back.
Yzerman had to wait 14 years to win a Cup. Almost got traded twice, in 92 and 95.
Ovechkin, the greatest goal scorer to ever live, took 12 years. He has only made it past the 2nd round once and it was the time he won the Cup. Once in TWENTY SEASONS.
It took Nathan MacKinnon 8 years to win a Cup. Hasn’t gone past the 2nd round since.
McDavid hasn’t won a Cup yet either. And his team isn’t considered the favorite to win it this year either.
Winning a Cup is very, very difficult even when you have the best players to ever play the game.
The Leafs have made a lot of mistakes and they’re definitely taking the long road to win a Cup. But these guys (Matthews, Marner and Nylander) are still the best chance they got. And they were 1 game away from being where Florida is right now. Keep your best players, get rid of the guys who suck defensively and bring in the right role players.
Kampf + 2025 2nd rnd (FLA) + the right to Marner or 3rd rnd pck in 2026 for Karlsson
Knies Matthews Domi
Tavares Karlsson Nylander
McMann ?? ??Cowan?
Lorentz Laughton TanevLeafs get 9 goals, 29 points.
Marner gets to laugh as hard as Kadri did as he wins a Cup.
Great deal!
I agree with the Gravy 🚂
Knies Matthews Domi
McMann Tavares NylanderInvest in 3rd line
Or trade Domi and Kampf to NYR for Kreider Trade 44 for Coleman
Lol, not winning shit with that top-six, sorry. 2nd line is horrible defensively.
Don’t see the Rangers accepting that, he also has a NTC. No chance Calgary or Rielly accept that trade either.
Rielly is going to very, very few places. Either a contender stupid enough to take him, Vancouver, Seattle and maybe Utah because it’s closer to the West coast. But probably not Utah because he loves his rainbow flags, so, again, back to Vancouver and Seattle as the top two locations.
I agree, invest in the 3rd line but that means bringing in a strong, 3C and that means Jenner and/or McBain and UFAs for wingers.
